The internet should be like a blank sheet of paper for people to write on, says the creator of the World Wide Web.

In Wellington for just one day, Sir Tim Berners-Lee told an audience of tech types last night that the web was at its best when as open as possible.

‘‘It should be like a sheet of paper – without attitude. It’s not concerned about what is written on it.’’

In 1989, the British computer scientist became the first person to create a link between a web page and a server via the internet, establishing the World Wide Web as it is known today.

The lecture, held at Te Papa, was part of a whirlwind tour that also included meetings with Prime Minister John Key, ministers and officials to discuss New Zealand’s approach to the digital environment.

While he would not divulge what discussions he had with the prime minister, he said all people should be able to use the internet without fear that companies or governments were spying, or data-mining.

‘‘We should be able to use the internet without worrying about whether there is someone looking over our shoulder.’’

Part of that included creating business models that allowed people to obtain music, movies and or even cat photos in any format they desired.

Earlier in the day we had a reception and powhiri for Sir Tim and the point was made that he invented the WWW without needing to get permisson from any person or any Government. That is the strength of the Internet.

‘There’s someone out there who next week is going to produce something you could never imagine. And that’s not about technology, that’s humanity.’’

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 31st, 2013 at 10:00 am and is filed under Internet.
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27 Responses to “Internet best open and free”

I sincerely hope it does remain open and free. However, no-one can doubt that it is a world-changing invention which has such significant effects on economies and sovereignties that it would be unrealistic to expect governments and corporations to keep their hands off. I remember the highly democratic processes of the early Internet such as setting up a new Usenet group. Now we have the ITU and governments wanting to be “in charge”

The internet should be totally free with no censorship. The internet is not owned by Government, it is not their property, it is none of their business. There are no circumstances where it is appropriate for the Government to censor the net. Appeals to wipe out kiddy porn and other emotive nonsense are used to shut down debate and allow the state legal rights to limit what we see. After all, who would dare oppose efforts to stop kiddy porn !

doesn’t matter what anyone invents there is ALWAYS a politician and their clip board banging arse sniffing adherents who think they should own it or tax it.
The yanks are trying their hardest along with the EU. to tax it somehow.
Nothing changes in the world of the socialists.

I don’t thank that word “socialist” means what you think it means.
It’s great as an epithet to throw around, until you look it up in a dictionary and realise it means something different, and is not all that terrifying.

Socialism: refers to an economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production.
“Social ownership” may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, state ownership, or citizen ownership of equity.

When Tim Berners-Lee created HTTP, HTML and WorldWideWeb (first browser and editor) and CERN httpd, it was to enable the free sharing of information between academics.

Part of his first posting was this: “The WorldWideWeb (WWW) project aims to allow all links to be made to any information anywhere. […] The WWW project was started to allow high energy physicists to share data, news, and documentation. We are very interested in spreading the web to other areas, and having gateway servers for other data. Collaborators welcome!”

A cooperative enterprise, citizen ownership of equity. Free sharing of information by the collective. Sounds a lot like socialism. It sure as hell ain’t capitalism.

Net Neutrality is vitally important for humanity, that the WWW remains freely available to all. Free of corporations routing information and commerce to preferred locations, free of governments wanting to tax it, restrict it, and more importantly using it to track and collect data on their citizens.

Btw, other socialist ideas you probably like: superannuation, single payer health care, education … Oh, and btw, the internet (arpanet) upon which the world Wide Web runs, was created using government funded research.

Speak for yourself. These ideas are all crap and performing extremely poorly while bankrupting our society.

Superannuation- bankrupt

Health care- ineffective, dominated more and more by death panels, and also going bankrupt.

Education- Utterly and completely fucked for decades under the misguidance of Wellington Central Communist Control.

The true intent all of these so called “ideas” is to enslave the people, make them more dependent upon socialist elites and thereby in the misguided gratitude flowing from that dependence, allow them utmost power over our lives.

Including the power to limit our standard of living, limit our access to health care, and direct our so called eduction into a pathetically inadequate socialist indoctrination process.

And from all of this comes their ultimate holy grail, the ultimate ambition of all socialists, and that is unbridled political power, and they will use that unbridled power to shut down the internet and any other concept that might threaten their political ascendancy.

And it is the likes of you Neuteredsong, who will cheer them on while they do it.

And from all of this comes their ultimate holy grail, the ultimate ambition of all socialists, and that is unbridled political power, and they will use that unbridled power to shut down the internet and any other concept that might threaten their political ascendancy.

Please read some books.

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”

The true intent all of these so called “ideas” is to enslave the people, make them more dependent upon socialist elites and thereby in the misguided gratitude flowing from that dependence, allow them utmost power over our lives.

Including the power to limit our standard of living, limit our access to health care, and direct our so called eduction into a pathetically inadequate socialist indoctrination process..

Yes, red, you have seen through all of us and discovered our masterplan.

You have to admit, if we socialist elites have done all this, we can’t be that useless after all. It takes a lot of thought, planning, ogranisational skills, discipline, foresight, logistics, etc. etc.

I mean, you must feel frustrated and incompetent to be beaten over and over again by some knuckle-dragging commie socialist scum despite your obvious superiority.

How come you are always on the losing side, Reddy?

Maybe you just admire our success and are a tiny bit envious. aren’t you?

So, Fox News presenters, World Net Daily, American Talkback Radio … and a crazy guitarist.

You do know that these people derive their income from whipping up anxiety in weak minded Americans.

I would have thought you could have at least read The Wealth of Nations, Atlas Shrugged (and other Ayn Rand novels).

My comment though was about you knowing so much about the evil socialist mind and their all consuming desire to subjugate the world. So “The Communist Manifesto” and “Das Kapital” were the ones I thought you might read.
At the very least it will give you some insight into the mind of the “enemy” (you know, your fellow New Zealanders).

eszett, I can imagine you with gilded framed pictures of chairman Mao & Marx on the wall, as you sit in the corner dressed in gray, reading Noam Chomsky’s pompous ramblings by candle light with a suitable dour and emibittered look on your face.

Kea (1,952) Says:
January 31st, 2013 at 12:28 pm
eszett, I can imagine you with gilded framed pictures of chairman Mao & Marx on the wall, as you sit in the corner dressed in gray, reading Noam Chomsky’s pompous ramblings by candle light with a suitable dour and emibittered look on your face.

Gawd, you poor isolated parochial small town people. You are actually so out of touch you think that communists like Jeremy Paxman (totally humiliated by Ann in the clip above) and Bill Maher are people who should be listened to.

Good grief, that tired old liberal bullshit is on the skids completely now, and the only thing that will save it the same old totalitarianism that is the subject of this thread, wherein the internet is under threat from the UN, and Obama whom Bill Maher has given one million dollars to help his re-election.